Undergraduate Research

When this year’s iGEM team at the University of Colorado Boulder began meeting early this year, they wanted to take what they knew about biology, and use it to build something entirely new. iGEM, or International Genetically Engineered Machine, is the top synthetic biology competition in the world and after a foundation-building first year, the CU-Boulder team wanted to make an impact in 2013.

The spacecraft for NASA’s Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN, mission to Mars being led by the University of Colorado Boulder has arrived in Florida in anticipation of a November launch.

The spacecraft was shipped on Friday, Aug. 2, aboard a U.S. Air Force cargo plane from Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colo., to the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Fla. Lockheed Martin had previously assembled and tested MAVEN in its Littleton, Colo., facility.

A research team involving several scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder has found an unexpected silver lining in the devastating pine beetle outbreaks ravaging the West: Such events do not harm water quality in adjacent streams as scientists had previously believed.

Senior Christina Jones decided to major in civil engineering because she likes construction projects. Little did she know when she made that decision that she would be selected as an intern to work on one of the largest and most significant projects underway in the whole world—the expansion of the nearly 100-year-old Panama Canal.

A University of Colorado Boulder-led mission to explore and understand how the loss of atmospheric gas has changed the climate of Mars over the eons has been authorized by NASA to proceed to system delivery, spacecraft integration, testing and launch, which is slated for November 2013.

A sounding rocket launching from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia Aug. 23 will be carrying two University of Colorado Boulder student-built payloads and a pair of other payloads developed by students from Virginia Tech, Baylor University and the University of Puerto Rico.

Student-built devices ranging from innovative new products to adaptive technology for people with disabilities will be among more than 60 student inventions showcased at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Engineering Design Expo on Saturday, April 28.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held from noon to 3 p.m. at the Integrated Teaching and Learning Laboratory on Regent Drive south of Colorado Avenue. Projects will be exhibited both indoors and outdoors on the Herbst Plaza.

A revolutionary research and teaching facility opening at the University of Colorado Boulder will facilitate work on a wide swath of pressing societal challenges ranging from biomedical issues like cancer, heart disease and tissue engineering to the development of new biofuels.

Engineering students at the University of Colorado Boulder will host the annual College Egg Drop on April 19 as part of their annual celebration of Engineering Days.

The egg drop, which starts at 1 p.m. on the west side of the Engineering Center, challenges students to create a contraption that will protect a raw egg when dropped from the eighth floor of the Engineering Center’s office tower.